Budget Usability Testing

Chas GrundyUniversity of Notre Dame

orMore Testing, Fewer Excuses

eduWeb 2009

Why bother testing?

Testing helps you discover problems

before they can publicly humiliate you.

Why bother testing?

Why bother testing?

Why bother testing?

If it's a pain to do, you probably won't do it.

The Rules

1. Little or no money (< $50)2. Little or no time (< 2 hours)3. Little or no expertise (could start

today)

Screw the scientific method

Learning Something is Better Than Learning Nothing

Learning

• What do you want to learn?• How can you learn it?• Who can you learn it from?• When to test?

Test early, test often

Review Website

Content Planning

Writing and

Editing

Content into

Website

Testing Launch Website

Design Mockups

Build Templates

Test

Test

TestTest TestTest

You can test anything

• Paper Prototypes• Wireframes• Mockups• Pages• Live sites• Competitors’ websites

Designing Your Tests

• Get task-oriented• Don’t give away the answer• There are no right and wrong

answers• Let the user do the talking• Don’t ask open-ended questions

People will create opinions if you ask for them.

What users say isn't what they do.

I hate scrolling.I would never click there.Nobody would do that.

Objection: Speculation!

Everything you do could be wrong.

It's not good enough just to learn, you have to take action

• Analysis – reviewing the results• Fix the obvious• Do a special test for the hard stuff• Re-test to make sure you got it right

Design once, increment forever

Test early, test often

At the end of the project is too late!

The Actual Tests - Tools

Windows• Camtasia ($179) *• Morae ($1,120) *• Jing Pro ($15)• Windows Media

Encoder (free)

Mac• Silverback ($50)• Screenflow ($90) *• Jing Pro ($15)

* educational discount

Any screencasting/recording tool can work.

Resources

Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug

useit.com, Jakob Nielsen

usability.gov

Start a Usability Testing Program in 5 Dayshttp://www.edustyle.net/blog/?p=445

More:http://delicious.com/chasgrundy/usability

So long and thanks for all the fish

Chas GrundyUniversity of Notre Dame

twitter @chasgrundyblog grundyhome.comemail chas@grundyhome.com